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Research

A World-Class Environment for Neuroscience Research

The Neuroscience Institute at Wright State University provides a world-class, scholarly environment for interaction and collaboration among basic and clinical neuroscientists both within and outside the university. Institute scientists are advancing research on the nervous system in areas ranging from cellular and molecular mechanisms to behaviors. The institute’s core facilities feature advanced technology and expertise to allow basic and clinical neuroscientists to incorporate state-of-the-art genomics, proteomics, imaging and informatics approaches in their research.

The Boonshoft School of medicine has an exceptionally talented cadre of NIH-funded neuroscientists on the WSU campus, including a team awarded two prestigious Program Project Grants totaling more than $9 million from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The medical school also possesses excellent core resources and equipment for fundamental laboratory research, which provide a strong foundation for institute activities.

Fostering Collaboration

A core part of the institute’s mission is to foster close collaboration among scientists and clinicians in order to accelerate translational research and rapidly transform new discoveries in basic sciences into breakthroughs in patient care. This collaboration leverages the strategic hiring of clinicians with the same research interests as Wright State's basic science researchers to form a cooperative team to target clinically relevant science and bring unique clinical insights into the cutting-edge research done here.

Wright State neuroscientists are collaborating with clinicians at Johns Hopkins Medicine to determine whether they can help patients who are weakened to the point of paralysis after overcoming sepsis infection. Sepsis is a full-body inflammatory state that can lead to multisystem organ failure, coma or death. It is a complication among severely ill patients in intensive-care units.

Lead researcher Mark Rich, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology, has devoted a large part of his career studying sepsis-related paralysis and the misbehaving motor neurons that cause it.

Wright State neuroengineer Sherif M. Elbasiouny, Ph.D., has a three-year, $433,000 research grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to try to make upper limb prostheses feel and function like natural limbs.

Key Expertise and Exemplary Project Areas

Using the most sophisticated technology available for studying the nervous system, our research features innovative work on diseases and disorders that affect millions of U.S. families, including: